Mango Wing Help Needed

[LDimick]

We have a little hole in the wall place around the corner from our home that serves some amazing (to me) Mango Wings. They have a little heat to them and the sauce is clearly Mango. The sauce is added after the wings have been fried. Served with blue cheese, celery and carrots. Just like buffalo.

The sauce has a wet look, almost dripping. Definitely not baked into the wings.

I can see some red pepper flakes in the sauce. About the size of the infamous pizza topping but not round and a richer red. The sauce is clear and pretty translucent.

I did a lot of searching and found something that seemed close.

I bought a bottle of Mango Chutney, added in some turmeric, a bit of cayenne, salt and pepper. But the sauce was very cloudy after adding in the tumeric and cayenne.

Prior to cooking I put some baking powder in a bag and coated the wings with the mix to dry the skin. Unfortunately it came out almost like KFC coating. So the next time I will go back to drying in the refrigerator for 4 hours prior to grilling.

I have two problems. First, I can never seem to get the wings cooked right. I have tried 425 for 20-30 minutes. The IT gets plenty high (175+) but even with a liberal coating of baking powder the skin is not crisp. I have tried high smoke for an hour and then 35-45 minutes at 325-375. Same results.

Second, How do you guys reverse engineer a recipe? Do you have a recipe that sounds like what I am looking for?

ADDED: It is a Camp Chef pellet smoker.

[grantgallagher]

Ive never used the baking powder trick with wings personally. What are you cooking on? Anyways, the key for crispy wings is to pat dry the wings with paper towels and get them as dry as possible. Salt them and fridge them overnight. Add any additional DRY seasoning and hit on the grill with indirect heat as hot as humanly possible. I use a vortex and a kettle and can get to 500 degrees if its not super cold or super windy outside.

For a mango sauce, ive made one using manjo juice, habernero, garlic, lime juice and vinegar. You can add a little water to temper the sweetness of the juice and then cook it down. It is a fairly opaque sauce. But anything with real mango in it is going to be pretty opaque by nature IMO.

[FishTalesNC]

I'm with grantgallagher on a lot of this - dry brining overnight if possible, and using a vortex on my kettle to get hottest temps possible. Even then I cook mine for about an hour, flipping once. I do get crispy skin (pre-sauce):



I'm not sure you're getting hot enough for long enough.

As for the clear mango sauce, no idea, but wonder if they could be using something like this?

https://www.texaspepperjelly.com/rib-candy/rib-candy-heat/mango-habanero-rib.html

Good luck, I need to do some wings soon!

[LDimick]

I think you are right about not getting them hot enough for long enough.

Thanks for the lead on the sauce. That might do it. Just ned to figure out how to tone it down a bit. My wife thinks black pepper is too spicy

[Troutman]

VORTEX baby !!! Get that heat up to +600* and magic happens

[Red Man]

The vortex is definitely the way to go! I’ve never temped it but I need a pot holder to grab the handle to lift the lid!